Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing

Trinity Journal, Spring 2006 by Netland, Harold A

Bede Rundle. Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. 204 pp. $45.00.

Does the fact that the universe exists at all demand some kind of explanation? If so, what counts as a good explanation? In this stimulating and provocative book, Bede Rundle, professor emeritus of philosophy at Oxford, explores what he calls "philosophy's central and most perplexing question" (p. vii)-Why is there something rather than nothing?

The question itself goes back to Leibniz and is at the heart of some of the more persuasive forms of the cosmological argument for God's existence. One might then expect this book to be devoted largely to analysis of the cosmological argument. But this is not the case. Rundle's concern is rather with a set of metaphysical issues and concepts involved in any formulation of the cosmological argument, and thus the chapters provide a rich discussion of topics such as causation, space and time, mind and agency (human and divine), physical and non-physical realities, abstract entities, and necessary truths. Only by giving due attention to these subsidiary issues, he argues, can we understand properly the question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" and pursue an appropriate answer.

Rundle claims that disputes between theists and non-theists stem from fundamental confusions concerning the way the question has been understood (p. viii). Following Wittgentsein's therapeutic view of philosophy, Rundle seeks to tease out such confusions and reframe the issues. His argument is directed against both theists and those who maintain that physics alone can explain why there is something rather than nothing. Although both groups are said to misunderstand the logic of the question and thus provide untenable answers, it is really the theists who are the primary target of Rundle's critique. The first five chapters deal largely with theism, and the last three examine questions about matter and non-physical realities and the limits of explanation. Rundle concludes that the question, properly understood, is legitimate and has an answer, although not the one traditionally given. Rundle's answer is that something exists because there has to be something, but that what must exist is matter. Rundle finds the claim that there might have been sheer nothingness, the absence of anything at all, inconceivable since "something" (some "space") is presupposed in any affirmation or denial of existence (pp. 116-18). Moreover, although he is not a physicalist, and thus he acknowledges the reality (in some sense) of non-physical things (p. 130), in chs. 6 and 7 Rundle argues for the ontological priority of matter, since non-physical realities are said to presuppose a material world. Thus something must exist and that something must be material.

But if something must exist, shouldn't we identify this "something" with God? Not according to Rundle, who devotes his first five chapters to an extended critique of theism. Theism is rejected, not simply because the evidence for God's existence is unpersuasive (which he believes), but more fundamentally because the concept of God itself is incoherent. The concept of God, traditionally understood, cannot serve as a meaningful explanation for why there is something rather than nothing. Rundle states at the outset, "In general, it does not require subscription to a contentious account of what makes for meaningfulness to find good reason for attributing incoherence to the theist's position. In particular, it proves difficult to see how the crucial concept of explanation can have any application to the otherworldly" (p. 1). An explanation only makes sense when it is informed by features of our world with which we are familiar; it loses its meaning when applied to domains beyond our universe. The specter of earlier Logical Positivism, so influential in the early twentieth century but so thoroughly discredited since then, is unmistakable in ch. 1. Although he tries to distance himself from the notorious verifiability criterion of classical positivism, Rundle faults theological propositions for manifesting "a failure of meaning" and "forms of incoherence close to, or actually involving contradiction" (p. 4). The central problem for theists is "in the conception of God, an immaterial being, as a recognizable agent of change in the natural world" (p. 19). Again, "It is not just that something unobservable is postulated; so remote is God from the physical world, we are hard pressed to understand how he might bear any relation to that domain" (p. 25). If one accepts Rundle's contention that mind, agency, and causation all necessarily presuppose physical realities, then to speak of God-an essentially non-spatial and non-physical being-as the creator and sustainer of the universe who also intervenes miraculously in human affairs is problematic indeed.

Professor Rundle's writing is clear and elegant, and his treatment of metaphysical issues, while often demanding, is thoughtful and penetrating. Yet I remain unconvinced. I conclude with three brief comments. First, although there has been an impressive resurgence in philosophical theology during the past forty years, with leading philosophers addressing many of the issues that Rundle finds so problematic, there is almost no engagement with this literature. It is almost as if we are back in the 1950s, struggling within the parameters set by positivism. Second, Rundle's arguments rest upon ontological and epistemological assumptions which look to our experience of the physical world as normative for any conclusions about reality and which thus regard any talk of a being "outside" of the space time world with deep suspicion. One's response both to Rundle's critique of theism and his own proposal will be largely a function of how one regards these assumptions. And finally, Rundle's discussion highlights the ambiguities surrounding the notion of explanation. He correctly notes that the demand for explanation must end somewhere (p. 185); the issue is at what point one should end the search and why. And resolving that issue involves determining what constitutes a satisfactory explanation for the phenomenon in question. Given the contingency of the universe, why is there something rather than nothing? Those convinced that this is an important question and that any acceptable answer must transcend the universe itself will continue to insist that such explanation is to be found with God.